by E. D. Cask
Josh blinked against the light. The helmet had been pulled off and he was looking at a different Lytix. This one looked ancient. It was on a floating bed of some kind with all sorts of gadgets. The headrest lifted and the creature looked at Josh with its black eyes.
“What have you done to Duumai? Why has he become erratic?”
“Who are you?”
“I am Master Du.”
Josh snickered, “I bet you got picked on a lot at the playground.”
“Tell me, what have you said to Duumai?”
Josh shrugged, “I was only asking him questions.”
“What questions? Who are you? Are you a spy for the Natix?”
“No, what do you mean? That’s crazy. You are the ones who abducted me. Why would anyone would sign up for this?”
“What did you ask it?”
“Are you trying to threaten me? If Duumai didn’t or couldn’t break me, what makes you think a threat like that is going to do?”
Master Du blinked a few times. “We can kill you.”
“Of course you can. No one is debating that.”
“You wish to die?”
“No, but I refuse to grovel. Have you read any history of the world before this Cataclysm? There are always people who resist despots.”
The door to the room opened and Ku walked in slowly.
Master Du’s chair spun and he said, “What are you doing out of retraining? Who released you?”
Ku bowed, “Duumai wished to give you a message. It does not wish this creature to die. It would not serve our purpose.”
“Our purpose? I give you your purpose,” Master Du spat out.
“Please, master. Don’t let your emotions control you.”
“How dare you,” Master Du fumbled for the controls on his chair. He pushed a series of buttons and lay back with a look of satisfaction. “You will now return to retraining, Ku. Duumai has been restored to optimum.”
Ku looked at Josh and then Master Du. He bowed and left the room.
Master Du looked at Josh with a pleased expression.
Josh raised his eyebrows. “So you have the CTL+ALT+DEL key right there? That is interesting. I am guessing that this has happened before, right?”
“Perhaps Ku was correct. We need a different lever for you.” He tapped a few more keys and then sat and watched Josh. Josh stared back at him, not willing to give him any satisfaction.
After a few minutes, the door opened again and another Lytix came in with Sergei. Josh closed his eyes. This didn’t look good.
Master Du spoke, “Lu, activate the kryzhnuku.”
Almost immediately Sergei fell to the floor, writhing in pain.
Josh tried to pull his arms out of the restraints. “Damn you, Du. This is not fair.”
“There is no fair in yes and no, only no and yes.”
“Stop with the stupid fortune cookie sayings. What do you want?”
Master Du waved at the Lytix and Sergei stopped moaning. He lay there on the ground and looked up at Josh. “Josh, don’t do it. I don’t matter. Only the clan matters.”
The Lytix pressed a button again and Sergei screamed.
Josh roared, “You win. Stop it, okay?”
Master Du motioned to the guard again. “You will continue your training as before and you will fight for us, yes?”
Josh dropped his head onto the head rest and quietly replied, “Yes.”
Master Du stared at him for a while and then nodded.
Sergei and Josh helped each other back to the barracks. They were both weak from the pain. The others in the clan watched them walk in, but Sam jumped up and helped them into their beds. Sergei was moaning as Sam moved him onto the bed. Then he helped Josh sit down on his bed.
Alex broke the silence. “What did they do?”
Josh growled, “The bastards tortured us.” Immediately, he fell back on to the bed in pain. All the guys jumped back, waiting for the pain to start for them, but nothing happened. After a bit, Josh lay there exhausted. Alex started to speak again, but Josh cut him off.
“Just shut up and go to sleep.”
Josh lay there, defeated. He hated losing. He thought he could have resisted the brain washing, but he couldn’t allow one of his clan to be tortured in his place. Master Du had found his weak spot. It really annoyed him. He stayed up half the night trying to think of a way out of this and eventually fell into an exhausted sleep.
At the wakeup bell, everyone got ready for the day avoiding each other’s eyes and moving slowly. When they got to training, they did the work, but were not the top team. There was a message on their consoles. Be better next time. The ‘or else’ was implied. After food, Josh called them together in the barracks.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry—“
Sergei cut him off, “Don’t worry Joshy, we are clan.”
“My own stubbornness got us into this, so I do need to say I’m sorry, okay?” Josh looked down at his hands. “From now on, we need to be squeaky clean and we need to stick together, but also do our best in training. Understand?”
Sergei looked appalled, “You’re giving up?”
Josh squinted at him and tapped his fingers. “I wasn’t aware I asked you.” He looked down at his fingers. Sergei frowned and looked down. Josh said, “Remember guys, we are the A-Team. Don’t forget it.”
Freddy wrinkled his brow, “Wait are you—“
Josh turned on him, “Shut up, Freddy. We are the A-Team, okay?”
Sergei tapped his fingers, “A-Team, A-Team…”
The others took up the chant and the code, “A-Team, A-Team, A-Team…” then they looked at Josh, smiling.
Josh grinned, “And we aren’t going to be the B-Team.” He tapped his fingers again.
The clan copied him, “No B-Team.”
He continued, “I want you to be careful, not confused, okay?”
They kept going through the Logos alphabet, in a modified 5 by 5 code. It took longer to teach them the alphabet in Logos, but that was the only common language they knew. It was similar to the roman characters of English and many other languages. Some caught on much quicker than others. They had been Boy Scouts or something similar. Josh kept them at it, but made sure they didn’t say anything aloud about it. He also had to stop a couple when they were being too obvious. Alex started banging on the wall in code, until Josh stopped him.
While he couldn’t sleep the night before, Josh had remembered a prison movie where they had communicated by tapping on the walls in code. He had been so intrigued by the concept that he had looked it up and written it out. He figured he could use it if his mom started spying on him more than usual. It was a 5 by 5 grid square with the alphabet in sequence going down the rows and the C and K sharing the third spot in the first row. Since Logos didn’t seem to have the letter C, it was even easier. Josh realized that this was a slow process and a slow way to communicate, so he also started Sergei working on signs and codes for common words and concepts. Sergei came up with subtle signs for words like stop, follow, quiet, wrong, etc.
They made a game of it. Trying to tell jokes out loud while tapping a completely different code with their fingers.
“Why did the chicken cross the road?” Sam asked while tapping his fingers. T-O P-O-O-P O-N L-Y-T-I-X
The guys burst out laughing. Nick, who was slower catching on to the code, didn’t understand it.
“Wait, que es eso? It was too fast. To poop—“
Sergei and Freddy threw their blankets at him. “Shut up, Nick.”
Josh stopped them all. “Guys, this is serious. We need to focus on being the best team right now, okay?” There were scattered salutes around the room, some mock and some serious.
The next day, they killed the competition and were back on top.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Natix
Ab Teranovo stared out of her viewport into the vastness of space, tired. Tired of her chair, tired of her cabin, tired of the ship and tired of the fleet. Born to th
is life, she was already sick of it. She had taken over as Stargazer of the fleet after her father was killed in a surprise attack by a new and terrifying alien seven years ago. They had been fighting or hiding ever since and it was getting old. Her years with her father had been exciting; exploring the universe and discovering new worlds. She shuttered the viewport and replaced the view with a scenes from Urth; anything to change the unchanging monotony of space.
Ab glanced at her wall display of holos of her father. He had been so optimistic about finally finding a planet capable of oxygen replenishment and surface life. They had been searching for centuries. There were plenty of planets where they had stopped to mine needed minerals and process supplies, but none were ready for living. They had left behind hundreds of colonies of people who were tired of living in a small metal tube in space. Instead, they now lived in small metal tubes on hostile planets. Some colonies started under duress. The colonists had gone star crazy, attacking everyone in sight or tried to commit suicide by jumping out of an airlock. Some succeeded, but the AI’s had gotten better at predicting the behavior before it got out of hand.
The lighting in the cabin started changing to a reddish hue.
“Amiko, take this color out of the rotation. I’m sick of it. Let’s try a green and combine it with that pine scent.”
She sniffed appreciatively. This was a scent that she didn’t try often and it felt new. Ab watched the views of Urth on the display. The primary objective of the Natix fleet was to discover and settle on a habitable planet. This had been the singular dream since they had been ejected from the Sol system. The cold-blooded Lytix had kicked them out and the Natix decided to populate the stars. But it had not turned out well. They were still hunting for the perfect spot in the universe. After the attack by mysterious aliens and the years-long rear guard battle, they were ready for change. The fleet had been ready to split up and go their separate ways, but Ab knew this to be a mistake. They were acting as if the aliens would only follow one ship and leave the rest alone. That would not be the behavior of a single-minded sentient being which pursued an enemy for seven years.
Ab had come up with the desperation plan of returning to Urth. That had caught on like fire in an oxygen rich habitat. Now they were torn between revenge on the Lytix or begging for shelter or aid from them. Captains argued for one or the other depending on how their meal was digesting at the time. But, on the other hand, there was more hope than there had been in years. The blood fights resumed and there was plenty of interest in the champions and underdogs. Betting was at a high and people started smiling again.
Ab was happy for the change in attitude, but nervous about the outcome. Their years of wandering might be coming to an end, but what would be the cost? Death at the hands of the Lytix or the aliens, or a triumphant return to Urth? As tired as she was of the fleet, Terrified of Urth, Ab thought the pictures and vids that she watched couldn’t possibly be true. After years of desolate planets and moons and even more desolate space, she couldn’t fathom a planet like Urth. She assumed that most of the vids she had seen were created for entertainment and weren’t real.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts and tried to focus on her other senses. Ab placed her fingers on her bald head in an intricate, but well-practiced pattern and pressed. Her intuition and precog senses opened. The future was clear. There were no ill thoughts around her and most subconscious emotion seemed calm. She opened her mind to the flow of space. The aliens were still behind them, but not on the same course heading yet. They were still several hops behind. It was frustrating. Somehow no matter what the Natix did to hide their trail, the aliens picked up the scent. Their senses were not as developed as the Natix, but they did have dogged tenacity. Ab was picking up a new flavor ahead, in their future. Was there danger ahead? Unclear. There was excitement and rage. It was impossible that she was reading the Lytix. Had the Lytix joined forces with other aliens? That could present a problem.
Ab checked the status of the fleet. All 733 ships showed normal signs. She sent a message to the fleet captains.
Nothing new on the Svarmo. They are still several weeks behind. Our last set of maneuvers gave us the time we needed. But there is something in our future that I don’t understand. Please have your seers look ahead to Urth. Report their findings before our next meeting.
She closed the comm and leaned back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Finals
After days of more intensive training, Lu showed up at the first meal of the day. As similar as the Lytix were to each other, they had differences. Lu was even colder than Ku. And meaner. Everyone turned to the front and waited.
“Now we will test you against battle AI bots,” he said.
There was murmuring. Was this an exam?
“This will simulate battle conditions. You must not be weak or you will fail. Each team will act as a squadron and the team leader will receive orders to carry out.” Lu continued with a few other rules.
Josh, in spite of his anger at the manipulation, was amped. His clan would be a squadron among all the other squadrons. They were all being evaluated on how many enemy they killed and how many of their team was alive at the end. It seemed like a simple set up and Josh knew his team would do well.
The clan was joking and tap coding on the way to the sim deck. They didn’t mind the dirty looks they were getting from the other teams. They were used to it. No one really bothered them physically, because they were all so closely monitored.
They strapped in and put on the helmets. Josh keyed his comm and said, “Okay, A-Team, let’s show them what the geeks can do. Work together and stay in formation with your wingman. I’ll let you know how to deploy once we discover the enemy.”
There were several responses, but Josh started thinking about communications. He was worried that they were blind here. They couldn’t communicate freely. The tap code would be too obvious to use. They would have to work on some code words to use for these situations. He forgot about the problem as the display came up and the sim started.
They were all flying the saucers that they were now used to and they were in space, but the location was different. They seemed to be near a different planet. The display was identifying a massive hostile force.
“Aw, crap,” Alex muttered.
“Okay team, cut the chatter, we have been tasked with Sec39, so follow my lead.”
Using his hands to cue his mind, he moved the ship to Sector 39 and started looking for weaknesses. There didn’t seem to be any. They didn’t know the capabilities of the enemy yet. The ships they were seeing looked different. They looked like large star ships, not single fighters. Then he picked the fighters out. They were coming up from the other direction.
“Red and Green, drop down and cover us. Let’s see what kind of hits they can take.”
Sergei and Sam dropped down and started shooting. The enemy was fast, too fast. Josh could see that Sergei and Sam had missed completely, despite firing nearly continuous bolts.
“Guys, stop fooling around, this is serious. We don’t have time to waste here.”
Sam answered, “We’re trying. We missed somehow.”
“Something is different,” Sergei said. “Timing is off. They are moving as soon as we trigger the beams.”
Alex cut in. “Is it like lag? That isn’t fair, Josh. If they are delaying our feed, we can’t win.”
“Blue and Yellow, you give it a try.”
There was a scream on the comms and Sam’s ship blew up. Josh started sweating. This was getting too real. He wanted to unhook and check on Sam, but when he reached up for the helmet strap a warning beep sounded in his ear.
“What happened to Sam? Did he just— Oww! Can anyone check on him?” Sergei was trying to unhook, but was zapped when he tried.
“A-Team, stay with me. This is real. Try to lead the bogey to account for lag. Protect each other. We’ll see Sam after we win.” Josh didn’t really see a way out of this, but he wanted to protect his t
eam from whatever had happened to Sam. They fought and dodged and tried every trick they could think of, but it didn’t work. The enemy overwhelmed them. Josh winced every time one of his team got ‘killed’ and tried to help. Eventually, they were almost all gone.
When Josh was shot, it felt like the ship was blowing up. He could feel the rumble of the explosions in his whole body. It felt like his body was on fire. His ears were overloaded with sound. He felt like he was dying, but then remembered that this was only a sim. Reaching up he pulled his helmet off. The room was dark. Someone was sobbing.
Alex was the last one to be ‘killed’. Josh heard him scream and then silence. He pushed himself up out of his seat and stood up with weak knees. He tottered to the nearest console. Sergei was sitting there with tears in his eyes. When Josh asked if he was all right, he only nodded. Josh went from console to console, checking on the team. Most had forgotten to take off their helmets and sat there shaking.
Sam was sobbing, “I want to go home.”
Josh patted him on the back. He couldn’t think of anything to say. When he got to Bob and started pulling his helmet off, he noticed that he wasn’t moving. Josh panicked and ripped the helmet off and started slapping him.
“Bob, wake up. Bob, you okay? Come on, Bob. Medic!”
A MedBot showed up immediately and the team helped Josh lay Bob on the stretcher. They all started to follow the stretcher, but Lu showed up in the door and stopped them.
“You must remain here for debriefing,” he said.
Josh tried to push past him, “We need to— Oww!” He dropped to the floor.
Sergei reached out to help, but Lu held up a hand.
“You do not make the decisions here. You are weak. You must tell me why you lost. Why you should not be punished more.”
Fred and Sam both took a step back. They all looked at Josh for answers. He shook his head in defeat.
